Posted on 05/12/2016 6:08:44 AM PDT by Sybeck1
Mike Lee(R-Utah) said Wednesday that he is not ready to endorse presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump
"I have not supported Donald Trump up to this point, I have not endorsed him," Lee said, according to The Washington Examiner.
"I have some concerns with him. He scares me to death; so does Hillary Clinton
. There is no easy choice right now." Lee had previously endorsed Ted Cruz
, before the Texas senator ended his presidential bid earlier this month. At the time, he said Cruz had a "proven record of fighting for our conservative values and for the issues that matter most to Americans."
The Utah senator said he plans to continue following the election and will make a choice in the future.
"I'll make the decision as best I can," he said, "but I'm not there yet."
Lee now joins several other Republican leaders, who have said they are not ready to endorse Trump or said that they don't plan to vote for the presumptive nominee in a general election.
Speaker Paul Ryan said last week that he was "just not ready" to endorse the presumptive GOP nominee.
Oooo! Trump will get into Lee's knickers and cut off his....money train!
He too, suffers from TDS:
TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME!
Alpha male scares beta males.
I think we should start calling them Omega males. Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end.
Thanks for the reminder.
If Mike Lee is not a conservative, there is no such thing. Period. I am so damn tired of this. This guilt by association thing is ridiculous. Especially coming from a movement around a guy with few conservatives credentials and zero history of advancing conservative ideas. I am not anti-Trump, because I like change agents, but the burning down of a movement for one man who may or may not even bring decent solutions to the deal table is so damn ridiculous. It’s as gross as the idiotic anti-Trump diatribes going on at RedState and other sites. Those folks are unhinged. This is equally dumn.
It’s very quite here in Utah right now...since Cruz showed his true colors, you don’t hear people talking at all about Cruz...
Mike Lee and Harry Reid are in big do-do here, possible Grand Jury investigation with the Jeremy Johnson trial:
The Salt Lake Tribune
Feds sue, allege Johnson illegally donated to Mike Lee, Harry Reid and former Utah A.G.
By TOM HARVEY | and Robert Gehrke | The Salt Lake Tribune connect
First Published Jun 19 2015 09:15PM • Last Updated Feb 17 2016 03:02 pm
Indicted St. George businessman Jeremy Johnson illegally funneled tens of thousands of dollars to Sens. Harry Reid and Mike Lee as well as then-Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff, according to a new federal lawsuit.
In a complaint filed Friday in Salt Lake City’s U.S. District Court, the Federal Election Commission accused Johnson of giving about $50,000 to Lee’s 2010 campaign after John Swallow, Shurtleff’s top aide and handpicked successor, advised him that the Republican Senate hopeful, if elected, could influence the selection of Utah’s next U.S. attorney, who then could protect Johnson’s business interests.
“Johnson has reported that Swallow said to him: ‘[I]t is important that we raise this money and make Mike Lee our guy,’ “ according to the complaint. “ ‘[H]e is going to be choosing the next U.S. attorney and you gotta have him in your corner and you gotta have the U.S. attorney in your corner, especially while you are processing poker [payments] in this district.’ “
At the time, federal law limited campaign contributions to $2,400 per person, per election. The FEC alleges that Johnson gave tens of thousands of dollars to friends and associates to make so-called “straw donations” as a way to dodge those caps.
There is no indication in the complaint that Lee, Shurtleff or Reid knew Johnson was making illegal donations to their campaigns.
“At no time during the 2010 campaign, was Senator Lee or anyone associated with the Lee campaign aware of any unlawful contributions to the Lee campaign,” Boyd Matheson, Lee’s chief of staff, said Friday. “The documents obtained by investigators confirm that the scheme was known only to individuals who may have been involved as stated in the report.”
Shurtleff’s attorney, Richard Van Wagoner, said that his client “relied on his professional campaign finance staff to accept only legal contributions, and he had no knowledge of prohibited donations, if any, to his Senate campaign.”
“We know nothing about Mr. Johnson’s latest legal problems with the Federal Election Commission,” said Reid spokeswoman Kristen Orthman.
Swallow’s lawyer could not be reached Friday evening.
The FEC complaint says Johnson enlisted straw donors to kick in $20,000 to the 2010 re-election push of Nevada’s Reid, the Senate’s Democratic leader. The aim, again, was to shield Johnson businesses, which then included a southern Utah operation that processed online-poker payments.
Johnson said Friday that the FEC complaint stems from interviews he gave investigators pursuing multiple criminal charges against Swallow and Shurtleff.
“For my cooperation, I was guaranteed immunity. In other words, the information I shared in those confidential meetings with the FBI and state agents, I was told, would not be used to hurt me in any way. For reasons yet to be explained to me, that very information is now being used against me by the Federal Election Commission Election Commission,” he said in an emailed statement. “I am stunned. I can’t imagine anybody who wouldn’t be outraged if they were in my shoes.”
Davis County Attorney Troy Rawlings, who along with Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill investigated Swallow and is now prosecuting Shurtleff, backed, to some extent, Johnson’s version of events.
“There is more truth than fiction to Jeremy Johnson’s statement,” Rawlings wrote in an email late Friday. “In exchange for his significant cooperation, he is getting screwed by the United States government. I have demanded to know why and exactly who is behind this.”
Swallow acted as a chief fundraiser for Shurtleff, a former three-term attorney general, when the latter was exploring a run in 2009 against incumbent Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah.
Shurtleff dropped out of the race. By the time he did so, however, Johnson already had contributed about $100,000 to his campaign through straw donors, the FEC complaint
—
Amen, well said.
Please look at my list in #89. While you raise some valid concerns - mostly related to appearances and tactics, my list deals with substantive issues of policy. On ALL of those listed, Trump is far better for this nation than Hillary.
We are beyond looking for the ideal candidate at this point (and, BTW, Trump is not my ideal candidate, and I happen to agree with you on a lot of the tactics that he’s been using up to this point). The people have spoken, and Trump has beaten all 16 of his opponents on the Republican side. Now the choice is ONLY between Hillary or Trump (barring some very unusual events) - one of the 2 of them will be the next POTUS. Between them, IMHO, there is no choice for a sane, thinking, patriotic American - Trump is head and shoulders above her on ALL counts.
Mike Lee is another one waiting for the cue from Romney on what to do...
To think I once admired this pompous a-hole! Get on board Lee or get the hell out of the way and shut up!
Please read post 105.
I think most of the major churches have been infiltrated, just as education, courts and legislatures have been. All part of the same NWO scheme.
Mike Lee is probably scared of his own shadow.
Yep...Its either Trump or the hag...and Mile Lee has his own problems.
Revisit my post #81. Take out the "lucrative" part and we'll get public SERVANTS to replace the fill-my-pockets crowd.
No sane conservative is even THINKING about supporting Hillary Clinton.
Mike Lee is hated by the liberals almost as much as Ted Cruz. So, think about it: Their reluctance to board the Trump train is a signal to wavering Democrats that Trump is OK.
A much different situation than Paul Ryan who barks, growls and even nips on occasion but will ALWAYS roll over for ObaMao in the end.
How conservative is someone whose main lifetime employment is the govt? Or is limited govt principals only for the little people? When will he leave govt to work the private sector like a true conservative would?
Your Top Four “Trump will” statements are all based on nothing but fantasy. They also ignore Congress completely. WE HOPE he will do all of those things, but we have nothing on which to base the expectation that he will do so. Recall that Paul Ryan was a huge hero around here in 2009. George W Bush was our white knight in 2000. Both quickly ran to the middle once in office. Trump, as a populist, is even easier to predict to do so. The only difference is that Ryan and W were beholden to the GOPe, while Trump is beholden to nobody, giving us yet another strained hope that we won’t get stabbed for our efforts THIS time.
Shun Trump, shun our will, and you can start packing up the personal belongings in your office, as you'll be heading home this November to look for a new job.
I promise.
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