Sen. Mike Lee deletes social media posts about the Minnesota shooting after facing criticism
Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, removed posts on his personal X account about Saturday's fatal attack on a Minnesota lawmaker and her husband after facing fierce backlash from Democrats about the postings.
Minnesota Sen. Tina Smith, a Democrat who was friends with the slain lawmaker, told reporters on Monday that she confronted Lee about his tweet. 'I needed him to hear from me directly what impact I think his cruel statement had on me, his colleague,' she said.
Lee had written in one post about the Saturday assassination of Democratic state Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, that 'this is what happens When Marxists don't get their way.' In another, he posted a photo of the suspect in the case and captioned it, "Nightmare on Waltz Street," an apparent reference to the state's Democratic governor, Tim Walz.
Several Democrats had called on Lee to take down the posts, which he'd posted on Saturday and Sunday. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York said at a press conference Tuesday he asked Lee to remove them and "he wouldn't listen to me."
Some of Lee's posts about the shooting were still visible as of Tuesday afternoon, including one from Saturday night that said, 'Marxism kills.'
On Lee's official Senate X account, his posts struck a different tone. "These hateful attacks have no place in Utah, Minnesota, or anywhere in America. Please join me in condemning this senseless violence, and praying for the victims and their families," he wrote.
Prosecutors said the suspect, Vance Boelter, is also responsible for the non-fatal shooting of state Sen. John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette. Acting U.S. Attorney Joseph Thompson said Boelter's car had notebooks with the names of more than 45 state and federal elected officials, and the federal criminal complaint against him says officials named in the notebooks were 'mostly or all Democrats.'
Lee did not answer questions about the posts from NBC News on Monday, and his office did not immediately respond to a request for comment about why they were taken down on Tuesday.
Smith spoke to Lee on Monday and later told reporters she'd felt compelled to confront him about the posts.
'I wanted him to know how much pain that caused me and the other people in my state and I think around the country, who think that this was a brutal attack,' Smith told reporters in the Capitol on Monday.
Smith's deputy chief of staff, Ed Shelleby, also lambasted the posts in an email to Lee's office shared with NBC News.
'Is this how your team measures success? Using the office of US Senator to post not just one but a series of jokes about an assassination—is that a successful day of work on Team Lee?," Shelleby wrote.
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BBC News
29 minutes ago
- BBC News
Minnesota's 'nice' culture shattered by political violence
Jessie Ebertz held back tears as she stood in front of a makeshift memorial honouring the slain Democratic politician Melissa Hortman and her husband."Minnesota has felt a little bit like a safe haven," said Ms Ebertz, a government employee who lives in the state capital, "because we have been able to keep our atmosphere of respecting one another here.""This has blown that out of the water."The death of Hortman and her husband has sent a shockwave through the state. They were killed early Saturday morning by an assailant disguised as a police officer, who also injured Democratic state lawmaker, John Hoffman, and his wife. Both are expected to survive. But the attacks, which appear politically motivated, have badly shaken confidence in the state's reputation for politeness, courtesy and respect, an attitude that has its own nickname and Wikipedia page: "Minnesota nice". Prosecutors say the suspect Vance Boelter also visited two other homes early Saturday searching for state's largest-ever manhunt ended late Sunday when Boelter was captured near his home in a rural area dotted with farms, gravel roads and small villages about an hour away from the twin cities of Minneapolis and St Paul. Many pointed out that Mrs Hortman was known for her ability to work with Republican colleagues, including recently to pass a state budget vote. 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And according to evidence revealed by authorities, his long target list included Democratic and progressive lawmakers, and he had flyers with information about anti-Trump "No Kings" rallies which happened in St Paul and other cities around the country on the exact motive is still under investigation, evidence has indicated that the suspect was targeting the president's opponents and left-wing and Democratic Party politicians. "It's terrifying," said Kameko White, a neighbour who lived near one of the suspect's homes, in north Minneapolis, which was raided by police on Saturday."I saw that man every day in his yard," Ms White said. "The other day I saw him outside smoking and writing something down in a notebook."While the capture of Mr Boelter gave some measure of relief here, discussions on the airwaves in Minnesota have turned towards what can be done to cool the political temperature and prevent future Stocker, the editor of Thinking Minnesota, said "there's good people here" and noted that the vast majority of Minnesotans reject an increase in "othering" and heated rhetoric makes her pessimistic about the chances of peace any time soon."It's going to take a whole generation of people to say we're not going to take this any more and it just needs to stop," she said."I think we need young people to rise up and say we're just not going to stand for it."
Glasgow Times
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