Formerly 'corny' senator now 'all but unrecognizable' after MAGA transformation: columnist

Although Sen. Mike Lee has long been one of the most conservative members of the United States Senate, he did not formerly have a reputation as a MAGA radical. A lengthy new profile from The Atlantic's Tim Alberta explores how Lee has transformed not only from one of former President Donald Trump's top critics into a staunch Trump supporter, but how the senator himself has undergone a personality metamorphosis that many longtime colleagues and staffers say has rendered him "unrecognizable." Although Lee used to pride himself for having a strict, originalist view of the United States Constitution, Alberta notes that he was also part of the "alternate electors" scheme to overturn President Joe Biden's 2020 victory that has landed dozens of people in legal hot water. When asked about this, and about Trump's efforts to remain in power by having Vice President Mike Pence unilaterally throw out certified election results, Lee insisted to Alberta that neither he nor the former president did anything wrong. “Things that I would not have advised him to do.” In fact, Trump not only pressured Pence to throw out the certified results, but then sent a mob of angry supporters down to the United States Capitol building where they physically assaulted police officers, broke into the building and chanted for Pence's hanging.